


(let me know) which side of you’s the enemy

by mimosaeyes



Category: Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, F/M, Introspection, Post-Canon, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Vignette, this can be romantic or platonic I just know he loves her selflessly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28812087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mimosaeyes/pseuds/mimosaeyes
Summary: If Graham ever does see her again, he doesn’t know what he could say to explain how he could help to steal her free will from her for all those months.That’s okay, though. He doesn’t need her to forgive him. He only needs her to be herself again.Post 4x08.
Relationships: Gray | Crackle & Carmen Sandiego | Black Sheep, Gray | Crackle/Carmen Sandiego | Black Sheep
Comments: 14
Kudos: 252





	(let me know) which side of you’s the enemy

**Author's Note:**

> I have other thoughts about the finale, and this is pretty raw, but I had to work out my Graham feels. The way he said, “Please come back,” broke me just a bit.
> 
> Title from Comatose by The Brinks.

He had known it wasn’t her before he opened his eyes. He had heard only a quiet clicking of heels, but Carmen is too good a thief to make even that much noise. If she were to come visit him in hospital, Graham wouldn’t have any forewarning. He’d simply twitch awake to find that she had materialised in a chair at his bedside. 

By then she’d be lounging in her seat, playing up her boredom as if she’d been waiting ages for him to notice her arrival. She would lift an eyebrow and smirk in that familiar, cocky way, and he would protest that it didn’t count if you snuck up on someone while they were asleep.

Maybe it says something that he keeps imagining them falling back on their early dynamic, trying to one-up each other in a competition with no real stakes. That was an uncomplicated time, before they were ever pitted against each other or brainwashed into an uneasy allegiance, one of them always aware that the other was not really choosing this path.

This is the crux of the matter, which he keeps avoiding thinking about. This is the reason why every time Graham opens his eyes, he’s only half-hoping he’ll see her sitting there. 

For months, he’d been complicit in the Faculty’s manipulation of her. He had his old friend back, and she was more fun and fearless than ever before — taking impulsive risks on heists, dancing on the knife-edge of getting caught, sending a thrill through him every time she clambered into the Cleaners’ van with some priceless treasure, or turned to grin at him before diving backwards out of a plane. Sure, it had bothered him a little when they’d all been briefed on the false version of events Carmen believed to be reality. But he’d justified the lies by telling himself that graduating top of their class was what she deserved anyway. She was the best of them, and this way, she could enjoy thieving without any pesky doubts about right and wrong.

It had taken him far too long to admit that this wasn’t the Carmen he knew. She was too ruthless; she went too far. There was no better feeling in the world than running over rooftops with her in Copenhagen, the wind snatching at their banter and laughter, but then he’d missed a step, tipped at an angle he couldn’t correct, started to fall.

She caught him, of course. She was fast and her grip was firm. But she let him hang there off the side of the roof for a beat longer than necessary, the two of them grasping the other’s forearm, his weight barely counterbalanced by hers. Winded, heart thudding from the adrenaline, he had still noticed the momentary blankness on her face before she pulled him up. “Better keep up,” she teased him, too lighthearted too soon after the near-fatal accident, and when she hefted her sack of stolen jewels, he realised she hadn’t let go of it to grab for his outstretched hand.

The rapport they had was electric. The schemes she came up with were some of the best he’s pulled off in his whole career. But more and more, when he looked at her, he didn’t recognise his contrary, stubborn, fundamentally kind friend. He saw only the stranger that V.I.L.E. had engineered. A thousand times more competent an operative than the Robo-Robbers, but almost as cold and unfeeling.

“Could it be the real you?” he’d asked the Chief of A.C.M.E. in lieu of the woman he really wanted to address the question to. Once he’s discharged from hospital, in a weird way, he keeps doing just that. So much remains unresolved between him and Carmen, but it’s not his right to find her and dredge it all up.

Instead, he holds a one-sided conversation with the space in his life where she used to be. Once, he snags someone’s wallet — it had been jutting tantalisingly out of their bag, and old habits die hard — then guiltily arranges to bump into them farther down the street, slipping the wallet into an inner jacket pocket where it’ll be safe from other pickpockets. As he walks away, he mutters, “Happy now?” while pulling a face because he can’t remember when his conscience started to sound like Carmen.

Days pass, then weeks and months. He follows the media coverage of V.I.L.E.’s downfall religiously. Every time he gets a news alert, he first skims the article for any mention of a mysterious lady in red who had provided law enforcement with crucial intelligence to make their initial arrests. He feels relieved when there’s something along the lines of _She is continuing to cooperate with authorities in the hunt for…_ He frets when a few days go by with only updates about the court cases of each member of the Faculty. When he’d gotten his memories back, he’d been confused and disoriented, constantly having to sort through alternate versions of his own history. Carmen would have to grapple with that, as well as the knowledge of the things she’d done while brainwashed. Plus, unlike him, she hadn’t had the device on for long, and that was under duress. Graham can’t help worrying about how she’s coping.

And he can’t stop himself from visiting that one, fateful café. It’s a tactical error; if any of his classmates who have evaded capture were to realise he’s back in Sydney, using the same alias as before, they could take revenge for his defection. Yet he finds himself stopping there for a cup of coffee every so often. On a bad day, he can spend hours just sitting and reliving everything he’s done. 

That’s his plan — or rather, what he’s resigned himself to — today, the one-year anniversary of that final fight in Morocco. It’s pointless and sentimental, but what else is he going to do but go back to the place he last waited for her in vain?

Graham shoves his hands in his pockets as he waits for the light to change so he can cross the road. The traffic is interminable, passing in quick succession so that he catches only glimpses of the café between vehicles. He thought he’d finally disciplined himself to stop looking for a telltale flash of red in a crowd, but he does it anyway. Even though, if he ever does see her again, he doesn’t know what he could say to explain how he could help to steal her free will from her for all those months. 

That’s okay, though. He doesn’t need her to forgive him. He only needs her to be herself again, with all the warmth and heart that entails.

Because she _is_ the best of them. Not only the best thief, but the best person. He betrayed every last one of his associates, he tore apart his life after he just got it back, but it will all have been worth it if it means Carmen Sandiego is somewhere in the world, stealing things only to return them, frustrating thieves and puzzling bluecoats. All while wearing an imprudent amount of beautiful, bright red.

The passing cars slow to a stop as the light turns. Graham’s gaze is drawn to it instinctively.

He’ll swear, later, that he only looked away for a split-second. Less time than it takes to blink. When he looks back, his usual table is no longer unoccupied.

She’s here, lounging in her seat as if she’s been waiting ages for him. As he stares, she tilts her head back so that the shadow of her hood stops obscuring her face. She lifts an eyebrow at him and starts to smile.


End file.
